In early 2017--notably, as I was approaching 50--I decided to grow my hair out. For most of my life I've worn it very short, cut with clippers, but one day I thought, "I've never had long hair--I wonder what that's like?" So I stopped cutting it and let it grow. After 18 months or so, in the fall of 2018 I was finally able to pull it back into an actual ponytail--which was fun!
I liked wearing a baseball hat and having hair tumble out from under it. I liked driving with the windows down and feeling it whip around in the breeze. I was under no illusion that it affected how I looked--I have a gray beard and plenty of wrinkles, and I have no problem with looking old. But it affected how I felt, and that was a small consolation as I healed from several minor but painful injuries.
But as time went on it was less fun. Long hair's a pain in the ass, and when you're an old guy like me some of it falls out anyway, and while Amy has always loved the beard she did not love the long hair. So in March 2019 I decided the experiment was over, and I walked into my barber shop for the first time in in two years and had it all cut off. I felt a slight pang, knowing I'd never grow it out again, but it was the right choice.
Fast-forward to March 2020, and suddenly barber shops were closed along with everything else in the wake of the pandemic. A few months later Amy and I decided to leave San Francisco after 30 years, and we unexpectedly found ourselves on a farm in the middle of the countryside. Unless I wanted to start cutting my own hair, apparently I'd be growing it out again, and by mid-2021 I had a ponytail once more.
This time it wasn't really fun, given the circumstances, but I got used to it, and eventually it seemed like an aspect of my identity in this new life on the farm. I was the old dude with the beard and long hair at the end of the lane. Occasionally I took a drive and felt slightly rakish with my hair tossing in the wind, but as the months went on it became a pain in the ass again, and eventually I decided it had to go.
Given where we live now I wasn't going to be able to walk down the block to the barber shop. I was going to have to break out the clippers and do it myself. I put it off repeatedly, until yesterday I finally decided that it had to happen. And standing in front of the mirror, clippers in hand, I still hesitated. It wasn't vanity--my "pandemic ponytail" has been a source of more absurdity than pride.
But this time, I knew it would be permanent and that I'd never have the patience or desire to grow it out again, and I felt myself reluctant to take that step. Eventually I turned on the clippers, and in a few minutes it was done. I'm vaguely embarrassed by the whole episode, but if I've learned anything in life it's that embarrassment always has something useful to teach me.
I used to roll my eyes at middle-aged men with ponytails. "Who are they fooling?" I'd think. But I've learned that such efforts may have nothing to do with how we appear to others, and that what other people think may even be irrelevant. It may not be vanity or denial or a lack of self-awareness, but, rather, a liberation from judgment and pleasure in a feeling of vitality, however illusory.
I have much more empathy for anyone who's hesitating before closing a door in life that they'll never open again. At times I've felt impatient with people in this position, wanting them to be more forthright and decisive--but being reminded of my own sheepish reluctance in the face of such a small thing is humbling.
And having wrestled with all this, I'm more comfortable in my own skin, which is a great gift as I go ever deeper into the final third of my life. I know that aging will bring far greater challenges, and I can allow myself to feel undignified or even ashamed as a result, or I can recognize how absurd I am, how absurd life is, and I can laugh. Today, I'm laughing.
